Mobile phones receiving calls, filling gaps in agricultural extension

West Cameroon, the rainy season. The roads are impassible. The pigs
in the area are beginning to show symptoms of the deadly—and extremely
contagious—African Swine Fever, and farmers don’t know what to do to
keep it from spreading. This is the worst possible moment for farming
communities to be cut off from their main source of agricultural advice
and services: their local extension agents.
Jean works as an extension agent in this area of West Cameroon. When
the virus started to manifest itself in the area, he turned to mobile
phones to get critical instructions to farmers in his region. “Our
mission was to eliminate any pigs showing the symptoms of the disease to
prevent it from spreading to all the animals,” he explains. “Do I
abandon my farmers just because of a heavy rain?” Not when the phone
networks are still in working order.
“I called all group leaders and informed them about the situation and
explained the symptoms in detail. A day later, ten farmers called me
indicating that the symptoms were present in their production units. I
explained how to eliminate the infected individuals and how to keep the
others safe.” Thanks to Jean’s efforts and those of other extension
agents, the community avoided catastrophic losses to their herds.No mixed messages
Mobile phones are useful for more than just alerts on emergency
situations. Any time farmers have a problem they can call their
extension agent. Likewise, when extension agents have training
information to transmit, they can do so by phone when other options are
unavailable to them. Farmer group leaders receive the message and share
it throughout the community using the accepted communication channels.
Timely information concerning agricultural policy, projects and other
relevant information can be sent to farmers via SMS messages. For
example, during the last growing season an SMS was sent to farmers
informing them of the right date to start planting taking into account
the season’s erratic rainfall. The farmers who missed the information
ended up losing their seed.
In another season, research institutes in charge of developing new
seed varieties were not able to satisfy the needs of all farmers.
Immediately, an SMS was sent to farmers saying that 97% of them would
not receive the seed from these institutes. They were then able to
recourse to local seed varieties in case the improved seeds did not
come through.
Apart from the SMS service, farmers can even attend agricultural
training sessions via phone. Given an easy-to-memorize, toll-free number
to call and express their problem, they can be linked with the proper
technician right away. The farmers’ questions can usually be answered
right away, but if more investigation is needed the technician can later
call the farmer back with the information.
Farmers have been placing calls on a variety of matters, especially
production techniques, plant pathology, plant diseases, fertilizer, and
poultry, livestock and pig production.A few dropped calls
Despite its advantages, there are several elements that can limit the efficiency of this kind of mobile phone service.
The first is literacy rates among farmers, which are uniformly low.
Most farmers in the area (70%) have not gone past the primary level in
their education. Some do not know how to use their mobile phones to make
a call. Others know how to dial and receive calls but are not able to
read their message. Furthermore, messages are sent mainly in French,
effectively excluding English-speaking farmers. To solve this problem,
some farmers seek assistance by their child and also by extension agents
who help them learn to use their phone as a kind of work tool.
In addition, many rural areas in the production basin have limited
mobile phone network availability. In many villages there is only one
“hotspot” where you can sometimes receive a good signal, often farm from
the home. Farmers not at the hotspot can’t receive and SMS messages or
dial calls to their extension agents, so for urgent problems often don’t
get an immediate solution. This problem is one that requires government
involvement to finance the needed network infrastructure (antennas) in
rural areas.Mobile phones connect farmers that would otherwise be unreachable
Bad roads and heavy rain in West Cameroon could have been disastrous
for a small farming community. But effective organization of community
member in farmers’ groups, dedication from local extension agents, and
simple mobile phone technology averted a potential crisis.
The fact that a technical advisor cannot be physically present at any
point in time should no longer prevent farmers from getting the
information they need. “Anywhere I am,” says Jean, “I am in permanent
contact with farmers via mobile phone.”
This service is provided by NGO ACDIC (www.acdic.net) in Cameroon. It was developed in the hopes of promoting local productivity to reduce importation of agricultural products.Blogpost by Ngouambe Nestor, a social reporter for AASW6.